Month: September 2024

An old story

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
My Nobilette takes five at the Michial Emery trailhead.

It was the Wednesday Geezer Ride and I was running on O’Grady Standard Time as per usual.

I almost always make our meeting spot on time, or within shouting distance of it, anyway. But not this Wednesday.

After a distracting morning spent accommodating Herself and a visiting sister I was horsing the Nobilette northward along Tramway, a few minutes off my usual delayed kickoff and feeling a little light in the jersey pockets for some reason.

So I gave myself a quick pat-down.

“Shit, forgot my tools. Aw, probably won’t need them.” Onward.

Then the Watch cheeped.

“Forget your water bottle?” asked Herself.

“Shit again. That I will definitely need.”

So I texted the Ride Leader to let him know I’d join up somewhere along the route, then pulled a U and big-ringed it back toward El Rancho Pendejo, which this morning seemed aptly named.

While headed south I saw our Ride Leader headed north. We both looked at each other like, “WTF?” He should’ve been at the meetup while I should’ve been a couple minutes behind him and closing in.

“Back in a minute!” I yelled and punched it.

At the casa I grabbed bottle and tools and headed north once more, advising the Ride Leader via text that I’d try to catch up around Simms at Eagle Ridge, or at the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

But when I got to Eagle Ridge, no Geezers.

So I backtracked the route a bit. Nope. Rode up to Elena Gallegos. Nix. Did a couple laps of that loop to pass the time. Nuttin’.

Shit.

So I rip a quick shortcut to the next checkpoint, in High Desert. Nada.

¡Basta ya! I text again.

“Where you gents at?”

“At top of Elena’s,” replies the Ride Leader.

Sheeeeeeyit.

Anyway, to shorten an already-overlong story, one Geezer had a crook gut and bailed pre-ride, another flatted (the Ride Leader stopped to offer aid, which explains why he was running behind), and there were a couple other no-shows. A late start thus became even later. Our carefully designed velo-structure simply fell apart like a toilet-paper tent in a heavy rain.

At least our communications devices didn’t explode in our pockets or hands. First World Problems only, please.

In any event, so we’re a little slow off the start line. So what? Rivendell’s Grant Petersen likes “pleasurable, unhurried riding,” and so do I. When I can manage it, anyway.

• Hat tip to Alex Strickland, the former boss-fella at Adventure Cyclist, for passing along the Rivendell story.

Your Daily Don: Follow the leader

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
“Paul Krugman? How many divisions has he got?” (h/t Winston Churchill, “The Gathering Storm.”)

Almost all economists agree that taxes on imports are, in fact, passed on to consumers. Why? Because that’s what the evidence says, and it’s very hard to come up with an alternative story.

On the other hand, Trump loyalists — which these days means almost the entire Republican Party — insist as a group that foreigners, not American consumers, pay taxes on imports. Why? Because Donald Trump says so. — Paul Krugman, “Trumpism, Stalinism and the Tariff Debate.”

Your Daily Don: It’s always showtime

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
It isn’t golf, but you can still score a hole in one.

The New York Times has a piece headlined “The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump,'” which I decline to read or link to, because I suspect Mother Times doesn’t take credit for her own heavy lifting on that project (see “But her emails!”, etc.).

If you have a greater interest in the Who Gives a Shit? File than I do, you’ll have to do some hunting to find the thing, because the NYT yanked it off the top of the homepage and buried it on page three of a search under his name after the carny barker found himself in the shooting gallery again.

Now, I am not in favor of summary execution of those who commit golf, not even TFG. Some unbalanced types insist on playing with their little white balls in public, and for most an extended period of confinement in a psych ward or correctional facility should restore them to a semblance of mental health, or at least keep them off the lawn in what should be public parks, available to all free of charge.

Anyway, for the Clown Prince of Mar-a-Lardo it’s not even about “playing” golf, which is just something else he lies about and cheats at. It’s another day at the office, a fundraising opportunity.

As Billy Penn once said, “The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.”

And thus the Clown Prince finds himself as a supporting character in a new reality series, “Duck & Cover,” in which a conga line of heavily armed loons has a go at a maniac masquerading as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail.

Bit of a comedown, from star to second banana. Oh, well, it’s a living. Awaiting a blast of fortune indeed.

Grocery run

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo, etc.

When I haven’t been watching crazed seditionists screeching about immigrants living high on the dog or feeding less startling dishes of my own to visiting in-laws there’s been plenty of time for the ol’ bikey ridey around The Duck! City this past week.

The turnaround point.

On Wednesday my geezer brethren and I pedaled south and east through Tijeras and up to the Morning Star Grocery, just past Oak Flat on NM 337.

This annual outing is one of those “your mileage may vary” deals. A couple of us start from home; for me, the ride from El Rancho Pendejo and back is 42 miles with about 2,300 feet of vertical gain. Others drive to the meetup spot, a corporate grocery at Tramway and Central.

Our youngest (59) and oldest (82) riders were a little concerned about completing the entire ride this year. The first was undertrained due to travel and other distractions, while the second confided he felt a little less snappy on the hills lately.

But both soldiered on and finished with honor. Huzzah to one and all.

Miss Mia does her Bill the Cat impression.

With the Morning Star ride and a few lesser outings in the rear view I’ll top 150 miles for this week, which is a lot for me. Also, a good excuse to eat everything in the house. Veggie quesadillas, bolognese over egg noodles, pizza, you name it.

Not the cat, though. Not even with homemade pico de gallo.